Urethrorrhea

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The abnormal secretion from the urethra, which can signal an underlying medical problem, is referred to as a pathological fluid discharge
2. A clinical indication of various conditions, this refers to the unusual leakage of liquid from the urethra
3. This term denotes the pathological discharge from the urethra, often associated with infections or other medical disorders

Etymology: "Urethrorrhea" is a medical coinage built from two Greek-derived elements: "urethro-", from "urethra" (the Greek "ourēthra", the passage for urine, from "ouron", urine), and "-rrhea", from Greek "rhoia", a flowing or discharge, from "rhein", to flow. Put together, the term names a flow out of the urethra. The suffix "-rrhea" is the part to notice, because its spelling and meaning have drifted over the centuries. In Greek it simply meant a flow, and it turns up in familiar English terms like "diarrhea" (literally a flowing through) and "gonorrhea" (a flow of seed). The spelling "-rrhoea" was once standard in British medical writing before American usage simplified it to "-rrhea." Doctors and anatomists built many such compounds in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by attaching these Greek fragments to body parts, so the word is a modern technical formation rather than something ancient physicians would have recognized.